ody we can put a nice
little cross in, but when we have broken the pledge we must mark it with
a cipher, and then when we are just horrid and keep on being cross, we
must black the day all over. Then once a week we have to show the books
to each other and make our confessions."

"Wouldn't it be splendid, if we could have a whole week of good marks,
to wear a little badge or something?" proposed Lizzie French.

"Oh Lizzie! we never can, it will be so hard to get through one single
day," Betty answered quickly. "I should just love to belong, though; I
am always saying ugly things and being sorry. What does S. B. C. mean?
How did you ever think of it?"

"The Sin Book Club," Ellen Grant explained. "Mary and I heard of one
that our cousin belonged to at boarding-school. She said that it took
weeks and weeks for some of the members to make one good mark, but after
you get into the habit of it, you find it quite easy. I will let you
take my book to make yours by, if you will let me have it back to-night.
I bought a little book for Mary and me that was only three cents, and
cut it in two; and Lizzie hasn't got hers yet, so you can buy one
together and go halves."

"I'd like to know who will pay the two cents," laughed Betty. "I will,
and then you can give me half a one-cent lead pencil to make change.
Papa always has such a joke about a man in one of Mr. Lowell's poems who
used to change a board nail for a shingle nail so as to make the weight
come right."

"No, you give me the pencil," said Lizzie, "I lost mine yesterday," and
the new members became unduly frivolous.

"Now we mustn't laugh, girls, because it is a solemn moment," said Ellen
Grant, though she did not succeed in looking very sober herself.

Betty was looking at Mary Grant's sin book, which had kept the record
of two days, both with bad marks. If Mary had failed, what could
impulsive Betty hope for? it was one of her worst temptations to make
fun or to find petty faults in people. She did not know what her friends
would think of her as time went on, but she meant to try very hard.

"Just think how lovely it will be if we learn never to say anything
against any one! Perhaps we ought to make it a big club instead of a
little one," but one of the girls said that people would laugh and would
be watching them.

"Oughtn't we to ask Becky to belong?" It was difficult for Betty to ask
this question, but she feared that her dear friend and neighbor's sharp
eyes